


Hungover You

by Redbone135



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:14:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21824965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redbone135/pseuds/Redbone135
Summary: Songfic to the title song. Angst. Set mostly in the space between BL1 and BL2, in which Mordecai mourns his loss of Brick and Tina helps him bounce back.
Relationships: Brick/Mordecai (Borderlands)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 29





	Hungover You

**Author's Note:**

> Song: Hungover You by Blink 182 (I changed one line based on what I thought it sounded like, as it fit better than the actual lyrics- fyi)  
> Bold are lyrics, italics are Mordecai's memories. Parts are told out of order and shifts in time make me nervous when not marked by font.

**A bottle for breakfast, trying to let go**

**Remember your voice, but it's only an echo**

**I still got your makeup here on my pillow**

**And I'm seeing ghosts outside of my window**

Mordecai emptied the last of the bottle and tossed it down into the graveyard of booze bottles collecting on his apartment floor. He really should take a shower. Make some coffee. Tidy up a little.

Instead he got up, making his way over to the boxes of Rakk Ale he had carried in last night under the guise of darkness, to keep Roland from saying anything, and rooted around for one that hadn’t been opened yet. 

Booze for breakfast, leftover take out for lunch, and a few stale cigarettes for supper. The diet of champions.

Literally.

Sometimes he had to remind himself that he was a champion. Defeater of the Destroyer, Winner of the Underdome, a Crimson Fucking Raider. But as he was quick to learn, loot didn’t buy happiness. What it bought was booze and plenty of it.

With a heavy sigh he twisted the cap off another bottle and stumbled his way back over to the threadbare couch he and a friend had dragged up here from the dump shortly after he moved in. He’d been sleeping on it, as of late.

His blankets still smelled of… well, they still reeked. ‘Gross,’ Lilith had said the last time she’d checked in on him, also under the guise of darkness to keep Roland from saying anything, ‘wash your bed sheets, Mordecai!’

But he kind of liked the stink. Just not enough to sleep in it.

Careful not to twist his ankle on the discarded bottles or slip in the bird shit that coated the carpet, he threw himself back onto the couch and took a long pull from the Rakk Ale in his hand. It was practically paint thinner. Then again, he’d burned off his taste buds a long time ago. 

The light on his Echo Device blinked angrily at him, he’d stopped picking up the calls at this point, they were always the same. Only one person called him anymore and it wasn’t normally to say hi. 

Still, he was two bottles in, before noon, and that was normally his threshold for playing the archived messages. With another heavy sigh, and just a touch of self-loathing, he picked up the device, bypassing the new messages and heading straight for his logged phone calls. He only had one saved, but he’d played it so often it might as well have been a million. 

“Hey Mordy, it’s Brick… sorry, you already know that. Anyways, I don’t like where we left things,” the voice poured out of the device and Mordecai had to remind himself through the haze of alcohol that it was just an Echo Recording. Just an echo, and an old one at that.

“I know you’re screening this call, and I know you’re still mad, but it’s late and I'm drunk and I've got somthin’ to say.”

Brick’s voice was so quiet through the tinny little device and Mordecai hated it. It didn’t even sound like him. Brick had always been loud, so loud it had been a challenge for Mordecai to see just how loud he could make the other man in fits of passion - both anger and adoration. 

“I want you to know there’s no hard feelings. I mean- there’s hard feelings with Roland, and Lil a little bit too, but I'm not mad at you. You’re probably swearing at me right about now, but you didn’t pick up the call so you can’t stop me from saying it. New Haven was never my thing. We both know I wasn't meant to be a Raider, I was just holdin’ on to somethin’…” here Brick’s voice began to choke up and it was always at this point of the message where Mordecai took another drag on his bottle and braced himself for what came next. “Something I pro’ly should have let go of a long time ago. Anyway, to recap: no hard feelings. Just wanted to talk. If you ever feel like reaching out, just know you can call me.”

But Mordecai never did. He listened to the message a thousand times a day. But he never did reach out. Never did call back. 

There was a banging outside his window, the standard Crimson Raider code, two soft, a pause, one loud. He had always been the pause in that knock, the in between space that drove his friends apart.

The knock repeated itself and for a moment he got his hopes up as he yanked the door open, still a little unsteady on his feet. 

“You’re not picking up your Echo,” Roland glared on the other side of the door, bright daylight pouring in around him like a holy halo, burning Mordecai’s sinful sensitive eyes. 

For a moment Mordecai thought about lying. I didn’t hear it. I don’t know where it is. But the traitorous device was still in his hand. 

“Buen Dia,” he tried instead.

“It’s noon,” Roland muttered back, his eyes fixed into the shithole apartment over Mordecai’s shoulder, “And you’re late for your watch again.”

Mordcai let out a string of bilingual swears, reaching for his goggles and bandoleer on the table behind him and rushing to fetch his rifle off it’s perch on his bedroom wall. Once a wall of trophies, now just a monument to memories.

“Are you drunk again?” Roland asked, though the answer was as obvious as the smell of the little apartment. “Come on man, we’ve talked about this!”

“No biggie, Roland, you know I'm a better shot when I'm drunk,” Mordecai joked, though neither one found the joke funny anymore. Roland hadn’t even laughed the first time. 

“It just takes one mistake,” Roland reminded him.

“And what? You'll kick me out too?”

“You’re different since he left.”

“Left, yeah,” Modecai laughed humorlessly. “Speaking of, how is Lilith doing?”

“She’s good,” Roland stuttered, always quick to fall into the hunter’s traps. “Real good. Yeah. I just went to see her last week and she’s doing better than ever. Over it, even.”

“You just keep telling yourself that,” Mordecai said with a pat on the shoulder as he pushed past his only friend and out into Sanctuary’s crowded city streets. 

That was his real talent. He was good with animals. An excellent shot. But his real talent was always finding the exact words he needed to hurt someone the most. 

**It was just one time, one time**

**Started turning into two times, a few times**

**Ain't been sober in a long time, a long time**

**Yeah, you used to be all mine, all mine**

_ “We better get back before anyone gets suspicious,” Mordecai had said, tightening his belt as he tried not to watch Brick get dressed. _

_ “Let them get suspicious,” Brick said, wrapping him in two huge arms and lifting him clean off his feet.  _

_ “I’m serious, Brick, I don’t want people knowing. This was the last time.” _

_ “You said that last time,” Brick smirked, shouldering both of their rifles as they made their way back to the Catch-A-Ride.  _

_ You’d think the big beef slab could take a hint, Modecai thought to himself. Their little camping trips were anything but romantic. It felt like the two of them were always so desperate by the time they were alone that the first time never lasted long. They always returned after a few days covered in sweat and red Pandoran dirt, hickeys and bite marks covered in bruises and scrapes from hunting skaggs.  _

_ It wasn’t like Mordecai didn’t love their time together- drinking, smoking, hunting, and fucking- what more could he have asked for? But it wasn’t the kind of thing they could bring with them back to New Haven. Roland and Lilith wouldn’t have understood.  _

_ "So fuck, ‘em," Brick would say whenever he brought it up. _

_ "Too busy fucking you," Mordecai would growl in response, letting his beard tickle at Brick’s neck while his hands worked the kind of magic that always seemed to shut Brick up. _

_ And that was a magic trick, because Brick never did shut up. _

_ Lately, though, their little camping trips had started turning into something more domestic and it made Mordecai’s skin crawl. They’d cook their kills over the campfire and stay awake doing Mordecai’s least favorite thing: talking. _

_ Brick had told him about his awful Menoetius childhood, how he hated anyone knowing he came from such a backwater planet. _

_ And Mordecai had opened up about his hateful dad and the joys of being the youngest and the smallest of all his siblings.  _

_ They’d shared awkward teenage stories, from Brick’s first kiss with the neighbor boy to Mordecai trying to explain to his mother what pansexual meant. They’d spent hours talking about their few happy memories and a lot of the less happy ones too.  _

_ Most recently they’d shared scars. How nothing split a lip like Brick’s mother’s wedding ring. How Mordecai’s dad’s cigarettes left little puckered marks that looked just like chicken pox scars across his face.  _

_ “I’m sorry,” Brick had whispered as he’d run a thumb over Mordecai’s lip, as if he really could kiss away the past. _

_ “It’s ok, I’m over it. I’m good at getting over things.” _

_ It had been too real, too intimate, and so after another quick go this morning he had decided it was time to pack everything up and load it back into the truck. Head back to Sanctuary where nobody looked at him like that. Where nobody made him feel like that. _

_ “Hey Mordy,” Brick asked as he loaded their things into the back of the truck. “You ever been in love?” _

_ And in a rare moment of honesty inspired by their late night conversations, he answered, “Love scares me.” _

_ “Huh,” Brick said thoughtfully, loading the second tent Mordecai insisted they pack to keep up appearances, “At least something does. I was beginning to think you weren’t human.” _

_ “Two things do, actually,” Mordecai said, slamming the hatch on the back of the Technical and turning to light a cigarette. _

_ “What's the other one?” Brick asked, leaning one arm against the truck and causing the whole thing to shake. _

_ “Your driving. Gimme the key,” he said with a grin, holding out his hand expectantly. _

_ Brick laughed his deep, heartwarming laugh, tossing the keys at him and punching him lightly on the shoulder. Lightly for Brick still caused Mordecai to stumble back a couple feet, the berserker’s big hands were surprisingly gentle when he wanted to be, but he often forgot Mordecai was fragile. Which was just how Mordecai liked it. _

_ And he liked those big, strong hands too. _

_ Hands that kept their distance back in Sanctuary. _

_ It’d be another couple weeks before he felt those hands wrapped around his- “Hey, Brick, how ‘bout a quickie in the backseat before we head back?” _

_ “Thought you were worried we’d be missed? Thought it was suspicious?” _

_ His heart fluttered at the way Brick pronounced suspicious. Brick had a way of making words with more than two syllables sound silly. Furthermore, Brick had a way of not caring about sounding silly that made Mordecai envious. _

_ “Eh,” he sighed, “I’m over it.” _

_ “You’re real good at getting over things,” Brick laughed, grabbing the sniper by his bandoleer and pulling him into the kind of kiss Mordecai was very afraid of.  _

**It feels like last night you came over**

**Now I wake up and you're nowhere**

**I've got my head hungover you**

**I guess I'm still hungover you**

He wasn’t sure how long he’d dozed off for- dreaming of a simpler time- back when no one knew who he was, just a guy, on a bus, with a bird. He didn’t sleep much anymore, largely because he didn’t like the dreams.

Or that’s what he told himself.

Actually, it was because he didn’t like waking up.

One second Brick was there, tugging at his beard, teasing him like he’d never allowed people to tease him before. And the next- he was cold and alone and sniping Slabs like he and Roland didn’t know who was running them.

He raised the rifle to his eye, looking down the scope towards the bandit camp he was supposed to be watching. It was fine, the camp was still empty, they were all probably as piss drunk and out cold as he was half the time. No one on Pandora was sober for long.

Still, this particular camp had been taking bits and pieces from their generators for a while now and so Roland and Helena had invented this post to keep them away.

Nothing high stakes. Nothing serious. 

He could handle it drunk, blind, and asleep.

Still, he’d feel better if something in the camp moved. Anything. It looked almost empty. 

He whistled for Blood, who was never far off, feeling her light weight settle onto his shoulder, her claws sharp and her feathers ruffled.

“What is it girl?” he asked, knowing too late what it was.

There was an explosion from somewhere behind him, back towards Sanctuary’s generators. 

Shouting, bright lights, shrapnel shards flying through the air. 

Roland wasn’t going to like this. 

**I was so wasted I couldn't see you**

**Didn't seem like a choice, no one to believe you**

**Nights that we stayed up days that we sleep through**

**I can still see your face outside of my window**

_ “It’s real easy for you, ain’t it?” Brick had yelled, loud as ever as he tossed Moxxi’s thong back at Mordecai, who didn’t even flinch. He had always heard tempers compared to fire and explosions, and with Brick he knew it to be true. But there was something cold and dead inside him and as much as he wished, just once, he could rise and fight the way normal people did, he knew he never would. His temper was ice, and it caused him to freeze up when he was his most angry and afraid. “Easy pretending like you don’t have a problem?” _

_ “I don’t,” he shot back with a shrug and another swig of the Rakk Ale they’d been sharing in his bed before this current bit of unpleasantness.  _

_ “Oh, you’ve got a problem, Mordecai. And it’s not that you’re ashamed of who you are. It’s not even that you’re ashamed of me. It’s that you ruin good things.” _

_ “You think you’re a good thing?” he asked, calm on the surface as his emotions screamed inside of him. Brick was the best thing. Of course he was. He was a best friend and a good lay and everything Mordecai had always wished he could be: big and loud and happy. But he was also right, Mordecai seemed to get off on ruining good things.  _

_ “Damn it, Mordy!” Brick had screamed, still crying as he gathered his things. For such a big man, a monster of a man, it fascinated Mordecai how easily he cried. Sometimes Mordecai wished he cared enough about anything to cry. _

_ “Where are you going? It’s two in the afternoon?” he goaded, “You just gonna walk outside, seven feet tall and naked as sin- like no one is gonna see you?” _

_ “Maybe Moxxi will see me.” _

_ Christ. What a baby. _

_ “So what if she does, mi amigo? Come back to bed.” _

_ “Mi amigo? Last night it was mi vida. What will it be tomorrow, huh? Mi exnovio?” _

_ “Don’t be so dramatic- we’re not even dating. Take my advice, come back to bed, have another drink, it’s not a big deal. You want me to stop seeing her? It don’t mean nothing.” _

_ Brick huffed, like an angry dog, “Take my advice and love something besides that damn bird for once. It doesn’t have to be me, but you need to learn to love someone.” _

_ “And you need to learn not to! Not everyone is worth loving!” he yelled, not moving from his bed to follow Brick out the door.  _

_ Yep, Mordecai always knew the exact thing he needed to say to hurt someone the most.  _

**It was just one time, one time**

**Started turning into two times, a few times**

**Ain't been sober in a long time, a long time**

**Yeah, you used to be all mine, all mine**

“It was one mistake!” He yelled, “I’ll do better next time!”

But of course it wasn’t one mistake. It was the latest in many. He’d managed to cover a few, knew Roland had covered the rest. Still, he was outraged at what they were suggesting.

It was no use though, Helena and Roland were both watching the scrawny sniper with pity in their eyes. Sometimes, he was envious of the way they had looked at Brick- with fear. He would do anything to trade their pity for fear. 

“No one is punishing you, Mordecai,” Roland tried to clarify with that annoying voice people reserved for children and morons. And, he supposed, incompetent drunks as well. “We just think you’d be better suited for reconnaissance over guard duty. It has nothing to do with your slip-up last week, we’ve been talking about this for a while.”

Oh, I bet he has, Mordecai thought darkly to himself, biting back the words. It was only a matter of time before Roland made a push to be the only Crimson Raider left in Sanctuary. The pig-headed, power-hungry pendejo. 

“Yeah, reconnaissance in the Tundra. You know, far away from anything and everything that matters. I’m sure I'll be a big help there,” he spat, turning to exit the command room.

Heavy feet pounded down the hallway after him, running to keep up with his long stride. That was a satisfying feeling, he might have been little compared to Brick, but Roland never had been able to keep up with him. 

“Listen, here’s the real reason I need you out there,” his friend said, placing his hand on his shoulder and spinning him around to face sincere dark eyes. “There's a girl.”

“I thought-” Mordecai began.

“No, not like that. A little girl. She’s too dangerous to bring in, and she won’t come here even if I asked her, but I don’t feel right leaving her out there by herself.”

“Too dangerous for Sanctuary but not enough to look out for herself?”

It felt fake.

“Yeah, and I know how good you are with dangerous… things.”

“He wasn’t-”

“I meant Bloodwing.”

“Okay, fine, I’ll go. But you’re not cutting me out, Roland. I earned my spot on the Raiders. Earned my spot in Sanctuary. I’m all you’ve got left,” he said, hoping his words hurt Roland as much as they hurt him to say. Because like it or not, probably not, the two of them had successfully pushed everyone else away. 

**It feels like last night you came over**

**Now I wake up and you're nowhere**

**I've got my head hungover you**

**I guess I'm still hungover you**

_ “Mordy, please, look at me,” Brick had begged, kneeling down in front of the hunter, his eyes desperate and shiny like polished steel. The softest steel Mordecai had ever seen. He was still covered in Shep’s blood. They hadn’t even let him wash the blood off first. He reminded Mordecai of a dog about to be put down. _

_ Mordecai shook his head, turning his eyes away, glad for once that his goggles were there to hide his lack of tears.  _

_ “Mordecai!” Brick had yelled. “I don’t care what they think of me. But you know me! You know I’m no monster!” _

_ “Please, Brick,” Mordecai had begged. This wasn’t how he wanted the others to find out. He felt ashamed: of himself, of Brick, of his own inability to own what they were. _

_ “Aw, hell no, don’t you dare,” Brick had said, knowing Mordecai well enough to predict what was coming next. “You tell them! They’ll listen to you.” _

_ “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mordecai hissed as he watched Roland and Lilith pretend they hadn’t already figured it out. For the sake of his pride. “This is about you. This is about what you did. You killed a man.” _

_ Brick let out a bark of a laugh. “I’ve killed a lot of men. So have you and the rest of them. This isn’t about Shep. It’s about his ego and you know it!” _

_ Mordecai cast a nervous look over his shoulder at Roland, whose eyes had filled with fire as his guards stood by, guns pointed. Brick was on borrowed time.  _

_ “You’ve always got to be the big man in front of Roland, don’t you Mordy? It’s toxic how much you strut for his approval. You think you’ve got any say around here? You think he has your back like I do? Please- tell them you want me to stay, tell them I belong here. With you. Don’t let a wishbone grow where your backbone should be!” _

_ “That’s the most Menoetius thing you’ve ever said,” Mordecai chuckled, knowing how much Brick hated being reminded his roots. _

_ “Fine, let me try something a little more Pandoran- Nut up or shut up, you tiny coward!” _

_ “I’m not going to defend you. I’m not going to turn my back on my friends.” _

_ “Then what am I?” Brick whispered, his voice so soft and lost Mordecai almost didn’t believe it came from the blood-soaked bandit in front of him.  _

_ But Mordecai was a coward, and a hateful one at that.  _

_ And he couldn’t meet Brick’s eyes.  _

_ “A hangover. The headache after a few fun, bad decisions. Brick, I’m sorry, but-” _

_ “Don’t bother,” Brick whispered, standing and turning to stalk away. “I’m already over it.” _

_ And for the last time Mordecai watched the wide-set shoulders and confident gait of the best thing that had ever happened to him leave Sanctuary for good. _

**I've got my head hungover you**

**I guess I'm still hungover you**

**A bottle for breakfast trying to let go**

**Remember your voice but it's only an echo**

He was probably most impressed with the way she had labeled all the colors on the sign, an arrow pointing to the demonic looking bunny that read “pink” and another pointing to the letters in Welcome that said “red- because it’s blood!” The cave smelled like chemicals and cookies and the dank stairway that would lead up to his room didn’t smell much less nauseating. 

“Roland said you’d be tall, but whoa mama, he did not mention your creepy mask. I love it! Wanna see mine?” she chattered on as she bounced around the little cave, picking up various items to show him, each with an intricate backstory. 

He’d had siblings growing up, a few nieces and nephews here and there, so he wasn’t a complete stranger to children and the enthusiastic energy most carried with them, but he’d been alone long enough now that he had come to cherish silence. 

“Listen- Tina, was it? I’m a little hungover, so I’m going to go take a nap, alright?”

She paused, mid-sentence, her whole face seeming to droop to match her lazy left eye. “But I was gonna make dinner,” she whispered, pointing to the box of MREs Roland had sent with him. Roland was apparently having supplies dropped off out here once a month, and though he had agreed to add Rakk Ale and cigarettes to the list, he had not agreed to more frequent drop offs. “We were gonna have tea and become bestest buds!”

“I’m good,” he mumbled, making his way to the stairs, dragging his bag full of dirty cloths, medkits, and rifle parts. “I don’t really like tea or friends.”

“Fine!” she spat angrily, picking up an object from the desk next to her bed and tossing it his direction. “Be a bitch!”

Was that a...?

Fuck!

He ducked into the stairwell in time to hear the soft beeping explode into a burst of noise, chunks of cave wall dislodging around the doorway and almost catching him in the arm. 

“First rule: no grenades in the house!” he yelled around the corner. 

“You’re not my real mom!” she yelled back, only to be interrupted by a whisper of a voice coming from somewhere near his feet.

In the rush of panic he’d dropped his Echo Device and the infernal thing was now playing his archived messages.

“Hey, Mordy, it’s me again. You know. Anyway, word in The Cuts is Roland’s giving you the boot. I didn’t call to say I told ya’ so, though I did, but I wanted you to know if you needed a place to go… just give me a call, anytime.”

“What was that?” Tina asked, her eyes drifting to the little cracked Echo Device Mordecai should have upgraded when the new models came out last year. But hadn’t, out of fear that his old messages wouldn’t transfer. 

“Just an Echo. An Old Echo.”

Not that old, honestly.

“I listen to my old Echos too,” she offered with a shrug. “The ones with my parents on ‘em.”

“It’s not the same thing, kid.”

“I think it is,” she said in a sing-song voice before skipping back into her room and letting the metal grate of a door clang shut behind her.

**It feels like last night you came over**

**Now I wake up and you're nowhere**

**I've got my head hungover you**

**I guess I'm still hungover you**

She was just a child, he reminded himself as he made his way down the stairs, tray balanced in both hands. Nothing scary about a child. Bloodwing hopped from shoulder to shoulder, trying to pick at the warm MRE he had attempted to doctor with varkid meat and cactus fruit into something edible. 

She was just a child and he was a grown-ass man. It didn't matter what she thought of him.

And yet, for some reason, he really wanted her approval.

Mercurial at best, he and Tina made an odd pair of roommates, mostly keeping to themselves until the loneliness was as cold as the ice outside and then one of them would creep into the other’s space for the world's smallest game of Bunkers and Badasses- more like story-time than an actual session. 

Occasionally she’d come up to his nest in the tower and watch old Echo shows with him- period pieces with costumes and love stories he was sure Roland would have mocked him for. He’d braid her hair and she’d fall asleep on his shoulder, a warm and heavy weight reminiscent of a perching Bloodwing.

Or, on even rarer occasions, he’d make his way down to her room in the underground cave and attend her tea parties in which he was forced to address all her dolls by their proper titles: they weren’t on a first name basis yet. She’d paint his nails and imitate his Spanish, asking him how to say things too lewd and offensive for him to teach her.

“Tina, I made dinner,” he called through the door, and then shooting a hateful look at Blood he whispered, “Yes, the apron really was necessary.” 

“Just leave it outside Mordy-mom, I’ll get to it when I'm hungry,” she called back, the sounds of tinkering drifting through the door, occasionally joined by little puffs of glitter from the cracks in the metal slats. 

“It’s warm, Tina, come get it now,” he insisted, running a nervous hand over the apron she had made him last week. It was light blue, he knew, because he had called it feminine and she had told him that if his eyes weren’t so broken he would know she had specifically made it in a BOY color, just for that very reason. He wanted her to know he appreciated her efforts- his dad had never appreciated his. 

“I’m busy!” she yelled through the door, anger rising to replace that sweet little girl voice he knew she was capable of. 

He sighed, “Mija, get out here and eat!”

“No gracias… no quiero… tu… com- I don’t wanna!” she yelled back through the door, the clanging inside growing even louder. 

“Tina- the only reason I’m out here in this shithole is to take care of you, now get out here and eat the damn food!” he yelled, letting his temper get the better of him. 

The door creaked open and she peaked out, her face covered in her bunny mask, little tufts of blonde hair peeking out around the chipped plastic. 

“The only reason I’m out here is to take care of you, dumbass!”

They both paused, masked eyes looking into masked eyes. 

“I’m sorry, Tina, I don't know what came over me,” he said, pulling up his mask to alleviate some of the heat in his face. “I didn’t mean it.”

“I did!” she yelled back, throwing off her mask and stamping her foot on the floor. “Roland said he needed someone to look out for you. And I said, ‘Ro-Ro- my man, I’m no baby sitter!’ and then he said, ‘Please Tina, you’re so awesome and amazing and he’s too dangerous to be in Sanctuary anymore.’”

Mordecai stood dumbfounded, a creeping chill running over his brain. Anger- he realized it was his old anger, the kind he’d grown numb to out here in the cold Tundra. The kind that always seemed to find just the right, wrong words to say. 

So he was getting the Brick treatment, was he?

It made sense, when Brick had grown too unpredictable Roland had sent him away.

And then again with Lilith.

But Mordecai wasn’t dangerous. He was a pathetic little man who couldn’t scare a varkid.

“Let’s be real, Tina,” he said, setting down the tray with a cold precision and taking what he knew was an unnecessarily threatening step in the direction of a thirteen-year-old girl. “What seems more likely, that Roland was worried about you or that he thought I was dangerous?”

Of course, in that moment, through the eyes of a terrified teenage girl, he knew the answer. But God bless Tina, she never showed her fear either.

“He said you were a worthless drunk who would eventually trade the bottle for a bullet and that… that… that… could you just back up for a second? I can’t think with you looming over me like a freakin’ bullymong!”

_ Are you drunk again? _

_ You know I’m a better shot when I’m drunk _

_ It just takes one mistake. _

Maybe there was more than one kind of dangerous.

He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror behind her, tall and red faced, eyes leaking emotion, and had to do a double take. Suddenly the room felt a little too hot, his face a little too wet.

“I’m going out for a smoke,” he announced to no one in particular, turning on his heel and making his way towards the narrow cave entrance.

“Fine! Cigarettes, milk! Whatever you want to call it. You go out and don’t come back. I don’t care! I don’t even like you anyways!” she yelled with all the courage her little voice could muster, dry-eyed and stone-faced.

Exactly the right words to wound him.

Idioto. Baboso. Tonto.

Mordecai always knew the wrong thing to say.

But that meant, too, that somewhere he knew the right thing.

“Well I don’t care if you like me, Tina. Or if you hate me. Because I love you and I’m not going anywhere! Now eat your damn dinner while I call Roland and tell him what a self-centered ass he is for putting that kind of responsibility on a little girl. Entiendes?”

“Si. I comprehend-o,” she mumbled, making her way over to the tray he had set down and picking it up more carefully than she would have one of her bombs. “Hey, Mordy, do you mean it?”

“Si, mija,” he said, fumbling with his Echo Device, scrolling past the Bs without pausing once for the first time in a year, eager to tear Roland a new one. He didn’t have time for a hangover today, not when he was drunk with a protective instinct unlike any he’d ever felt before.

“Hey, Mordy?”

“Hmn?”

“You wouldn’t really try to eat a bullet, would you?”

“No, mija. Eat your dinner. I’ll be right back.”

“Good, cause… te amo. Ok? Comprehend-o?”

He smiled, fitting his cigarette between his lips and letting the Tundra air brush against his tear-soaked face, stinging his eyes and making him feel more alive than he had in years. “I comprehend-o, Tina.”

**It feels like last night**

**You came over**

**Now I wake up**

**And you're nowhere**

**I've got my head hungover you**

**I guess I'm still hungover you**

“Mordecai, you piece of shit, get up! There is someone here to see you!” she banged on the locked door outside his tower, the noise was muffled by the liquor he’d downed and the bandanna he'd wrapped around his head. He was kidding himself, to think that the bandanna kept people from noticing he’d stopped re-twisting his dreads, but he just didn’t care enough to… care. 

There was a string of bilingual swearing and then more banging, Tina’s tiny fists unrepentantly loud on the heavy wooden door.

“Go away, Tina,” he whined, “I’m busy.”

“Mordy, you lazy ass, you haven't been busy since you were twenty,” yelled a deep baritone on the other side of the door. 

Had he accidentally hit play on his Echo Device?

Unsure of what to say he made his way to the door, kicking bottles and dirty laundry out of his way. “Brick?”

“No, it’s the tooth fairy.”

“Brick,” he yelled a little too enthusiastically for his own liking, ripping the door open so fast it bounced against the wall and hit him hard again in the hip. 

The two men embraced, Mordecai’s feet lifting off the ground, he had never been so happy to feel so small. 

The joy was short lived though as he caught sight of Tina, behind his old friend, her hair a tangled mess, eyes circled in dark shadows, a tear in her pants revealing a half-scabbed cut that was still bloody and looking a bit infected.

“Mija, what happened?” he asked, pushing against Brick to be put down and rushing to the cabinet where he kept his medkits. He’d let himself mope for too long and of course Tina had gotten into trouble in the last week that he’d been shut in his room. “Come here, let me see.”

“Don’t be such a mother hen- I’m fine. Your bigass boyfriend here rang one of my doorbells if you catch my drift. I like this guy, he can take a grenade like a champ. My knee… not so much.”

Still, she made her way over and let Mordecai clean the cut and slap what he had been assured was a colorful bandage on it. 

“I’ll give you two lovebirds some space,” she cooed, skipping back off down the stairs.

Brick smiled coyly, taking a seat where Tina had been a moment before.

“I didn’t tell her about you, if that’s what you’re thinking. She’s like that with everyone. Last week we were out hunting spiderants and she asked me which one I thought had the best booty. Don’t read too much into it.”

He left out the part of the story where he had answered with, ‘the red one- cause his booty be poppin’!’ right before sinking a bullet into the soft exoskeleton of the ginormous bug and collapsing into a fit of giggles with Tina. Brick probably wouldn’t have believed him anyways. 

“Seriously, why are you smiling at me like that?”

“When did you become such a dad?” Brick asked, tugging Mordecai’s arm to lift him gently to the bench next to him. 

All sorts of wrong answers filled Mordecai’s brain, hateful things, hurtful things.

“Same time I arrived at rock bottom,” he answered, playing with the hem of his scarf. “A wise man once told me I needed to learn how to love someone- anyone. Turned out to be Tina.”

“I don’t know if I'd say wise, beefy, maybe?”

They chuckled, Brick slinging an arm uncomfortably around his shoulder. 

“I heard about your bird.”

More hateful things. She had a name. You never liked her. At least she died faster than Dusty.

But he bit them all back.

“Yeah?”

“It’s why I'm here. I tried to call first but you never pick up the damn thing. How you holding up?”

Fine, his brain responded icily. I’m doing just fine without you, thank you. “I’ve been better,” he forced himself to say. “But I’ll bounce back.”

“Moxxi been out to offer her condolences yet?”

Mordecai’s heart fluttered at the way Brick pronounced condolences. It sounded silly in the most endearing of ways. 

“No, Roland neither. Lil stopped in right after it happened. You didn’t have to come all the way out here. I’ll get over it.”

“You’re good at that, getting over things.”

“Never did get over you,” he mumbled, a little bit ashamed it had taken him this long to admit it before sinking back into the bigger man’s arms in a fit of warm tears.


End file.
